Footsteps of a Traveler
by Traxits
Summary: After Jeremy's journey through time, Damon is the one who must live with the consequences. When the day comes that Jeremy finally arrives back home, Damon doesn't know if he can actually cope with what's happened. Sequel to "Wings of a Butterfly."
1. Remembering

**Title**: Footsteps of a Traveler  
**Author**: Traxits  
**Fandom**: The Vampire Diaries (TV series).  
**Pairing**: Damon Salvatore/Jeremy Gilbert (established relationship, specifically, established in "Wings of a Butterfly.")  
**Chapter Rating**: Mature for graphic descriptions of violence.  
**Chapter Content Notes**: Graphic description of violence, blood.  
**Chapter Word Count**: 4002 words.  
**Summary**: After Jeremy's journey through time, Damon is the one who must live with the consequences. When the day comes that Jeremy finally arrives back home, Damon doesn't know if he can actually cope with what's happened.  
**Author's Notes**: This is a direct sequel to "Wings of a Butterfly," so I highly recommend that you read that one first. Also, I wanted to clarify something that I am afraid didn't necessarily come through during the end of that story. Jeremy was _sixteen_ when he was sent back to 1863, where he spent several months alongside Damon. When he was transported back to modern time, he was sent to 2009: the day before the comet's arrival. This makes him _physically_ fifteen, but _mentally_ much closer to seventeen.

**[[ … Chapter 1: Remembering … ]]**

His breath caught when Jeremy pulled the collar of his shirt down just enough for Damon to see the burn. His hand twitched, and for a moment, he thought he might be able to control himself. Then the urge was too strong; he _needed_ to see it, needed to be certain. He tore the shirt open, shredded it really, and it hadn't even hit the ground before his fingers were tracing the outer edges of the wound.

"I killed him," he whispered, and his hand slid down Jeremy's arm. He could hear Jeremy saying something, agreeing with him if the kid had half of a brain, but his focus wasn't on the actual words. Instead, he was pulling Jeremy's hand up, his heart twisting painfully at the sight of the white scar over the palm. Hesitantly, he licked it, and when Jeremy made that low noise in the back of his throat, Damon's eyes closed.

* * *

He wasn't sure how long he stayed there, Jeremy's hand still in his mouth, his tongue desperately lapping up every single drop of blood that he could find. Eventually, Stefan dragged him away, left Jeremy's body laying in the grass, Emily gently pulling the boy into her lap, brushing his hair back from his face. She looked up at Damon, and for a moment, he didn't recognize her. He wanted to tear into her, to _kill_ her for touching his—

His nothing. Jeremy was dead. The realization struck him quite suddenly, and he fell to his knees, his hands lifting to touch his face. Blood was everywhere, he was covered in it— _Jeremy's_ blood— and he watched as Emily bent over the body, her eyes closing. She reached up and pulled the little bonnet off of her head, pressed her ear against Jeremy's chest, and then he saw the tears in her eyes. She licked her lips and looked up at him. Damon screamed. At least, he was pretty sure he screamed. It might have been a sob, but he didn't know, didn't _care_.

The entire night had gone from bad to worse to completely horrific. Everything that he'd been working toward, everything that he had imagined for his future was gone, warped to the point that Damon wasn't even sure he recognized himself in it anymore. He could feel his emotions flickering, stuttering between wracking his body to the point that he couldn't see and moments of emptiness where he wanted nothing more than to lay his own hand open, just to see if he would really bleed.

"Damon." Emily's voice was soft as she reached out to him, biting her bottom lip. He stared at her hand for a minute, two, before he lifted his eyes to her face. She swallowed thickly— he couldn't stop himself from watching the way her throat worked with the motion— and she offered him a very small smile. "Damon, he's not... If you can make me a promise, I will do what I can for him."

"What?"

Emily reached out then, caught his face in between her hands, and pulled him a little closer to her. "Damon. Do you want to see Jeremy again?" She spoke very slowly, and Damon nodded jerkily, his brow furrowing. He wanted to see Jeremy again. He wanted Jeremy to get up, to laugh at him, to brush those terrible bangs out of his face before surveying the area with that detached expression he could get.

Emily smiled at him, and he smiled back shakily, uncertain of what was going on. Too much had happened, his body was still screaming from the transition, from how close to death he'd gotten before he'd fed. He couldn't think through the sensations flooding through his body, from the way his hearing seemed to be able to pick up everything from too far away, from the way his eyes would focus on something yards away and refuse to look at the things he _wanted_ to see.

He could hear her chanting though, and he focused on that, crawling over until he could touch Jeremy's face. He rubbed a lock of that hair in between his fingers, and then he glanced up at Emily when she leaned over with the knife— still wet with Jeremy's blood— and cut the lock off in his hand.

"You'll need it," she murmured, and Damon hesitated for only a moment before he reached into Jeremy's jacket pocket and pulled out the handkerchief there. He wrapped the piece of hair in it and tucked it into one of his own pockets. Then her hands were moving, her eyes fell closed, and Damon resisted the urge to shrink back from her. It was _Emily_. He had seen her work magic before this, for Katherine.

Just as suddenly as she had started, she stopped, and Damon's hands sank down to touch the cool grass. Jeremy's body was gone. His eyes widened, and he hadn't even realized that he'd moved before his hand was around Emily's throat and she was coughing, trying to breathe. He snarled, fangs extended.

She gasped out a quiet, "He's not dead," and Damon's grip relaxed fractionally. He could feel Stefan tugging on him, trying to pull him away from her, but he didn't care. Stefan couldn't even seem to move him.

"Where did he go, Emily?" His voice was quiet, lower than it normally was. He leaned in a little closer, incapable of controlling himself. He could _hear_ her blood rushing through her body, hear each desperate pound of her heart.

"The comet." Emily coughed a little louder as Damon's grip eased up. He looked up at the comet, where she was pointing, and raised an eyebrow when he looked back at her. She swallowed. "I had to use the comet," she whispered. "The next time it passes, he will return." Damon didn't have to ask the next question. Before it had even fully formed in his head, Emily looked away and added, "You can see him again in one hundred years."

Damon went perfectly still, his eyes widening. Stefan even stopped tugging on his arm. "How long, Emily?"

She bit her bottom lip, clearly aware that he didn't like what she had said. "One hundred and forty years," she clarified. Her eyes were closed. Braced against his wrath perhaps.

For a moment, her words didn't register. He saw her mouth move, heard sound coming out, but he couldn't translate those noises into words that he could understand. Then, all at once, it slammed into him, and he must have lunged again, because Stefan finally got enough strength to haul him back. He snarled, fangs bared, and they were both struggling, Stefan trying to pin him down in the cold grass and Damon fighting to get anything at all close enough to Stefan's throat to do damage.

_Stefan_ had been the one to bring Jeremy, offering him that reassuring smile. _A gift_.

Damon broke then, the tears incapable of being held back, the sobs drawn out of his body with each painful gasp of air he could manage. Stefan let him go, put a hand in the middle of his back, and Damon hissed, shrugging his shoulder to dislodge the touch.

"I swear to you," Damon growled, "I will make your life hell, Stefan."

"Damon, I just—"

Another flash of fangs and Stefan's eyes widened. He held up his hands, took a step back, and Damon couldn't stop himself. Something in Stefan's manner, something in the way he was _running_, triggered him. He wanted to tear his own brother's throat out, and he couldn't have explained why. He was just certain that it would soothe the ache in his chest, the disappointment that he couldn't control.

"I will _kill_ you if I catch you," he said lowly, and Stefan, clearly sensing Damon's mood, fled. He looked back only once, at the edge of the clearing, and for a moment, Damon wanted to chase him, wanted to run him down into the ground. He wanted to feel blood pouring over his hands.

He glanced back over toward Emily, and quickly, she pulled a ring from the front pocket of her apron. She held it out to him, and he couldn't stop the slow smile at her trembling fingers. He snorted as he plucked the ring from her, holding it up so that he could look at it. The Salvatore crest. His stomach churned, and briefly, he wondered if he could still get sick.

"It's your daylight ring," Emily whispered.

And something in the way she said it, in the way she didn't look at him, it flipped a switch in him. He could _feel_ his emotions fading away, feel his anger being pushed away. He didn't spare her another glance as he stalked off into the woods, heading back toward the Salvatore house. He could smell the corpse long before he actually entered the house, and he drew a deep breath before he entered the study.

His father was laying there, blood splashed all over the floor, a wooden stake abandoned in the corner of the room. Damon's eyes narrowed, and he slowly crossed the floor, swallowing as he approached the body. His emotions were unsteady, like he couldn't quite figure out how to keep them turned off. Instead, they flooded through him; the childish fear of the mess around him, the anger that _he_ hadn't been the one to do it, the amusement that instead it had been his father's favorite child, the golden boy.

He crouched down, reaching out to lightly smooth the mussed hair, and _ah_, there it was. He found the button inside of him, jabbed it viciously, and smiled to himself at the sensation of the guilt fading, of the anger slowly slipping away from him. For several moments, he stayed there, savoring the feeling, enjoying the amusement that he was left with. A wry smile was still on his lips when he finally pushed back up to his feet, headed up the stairs.

He shoved everything that he couldn't live without into a bag— the same bag he'd carried as a soldier— and after just a heartbeat, he walked down the hall into Jeremy's room. He swept the pencils, the leftover pieces of charcoal, and the sketchbook into his bag, and then he was gone. He couldn't look at the sketchbook, not yet.

* * *

Damon had him pinned against the bed, was whispering something about it having been one hundred and forty-five years since he'd last seen him. But he wasn't thinking about that. All he could focus on was the scent of the lake still clinging to Jeremy's hair, the scent of Damon's blood still ghosting over his skin. Damon placed his hands flat on the bed, uncertain that he would be able to control himself. His lips touched Jeremy's ear, his neck. His nose brushed against Jeremy's hair, and then his hands clenched the blanket too hard. He could hear it rip.

* * *

The sketchbook stayed firmly closed for close to five years. Until Paris. Until Damon had learned to keep that damned button switched off, his guilt and anger firmly locked away. He was stretched out across the bed, a pair of the prettiest people he could find in Paris cuddled up against him. Idly, he trailed one hand through the woman's hair. He couldn't remember her name, and if he was completely honest, he didn't care that he didn't remember.

He could call her whatever he damned well liked. A faint smile quirked the edge of his lips. He could call either of them whatever he wanted.

He reached over her, fished out his bag, and pulled the small book from it. The sight of it alone was enough to make his emotions flicker, and he drew a deep breath before he finally opened it. The first page was a sketch of him, in smudged charcoal, and his brow furrowed as he recognized the uniform he was wearing in the sketch. Well, recognized the details that he knew from having worn it for so many days in a row. The musket was sandwiched between his thighs and his stomach, and he was reaching up, pushing the tip of his thumb under the kepi as he laughed.

Damon swallowed, and he glanced down at the corner of the pages, his frown deepening just a little more. After a quick thumb through, he felt like he was going to be sick. Every page with a folded corner had a sketch of him on it, and he managed a faint smile as he realized most of them were candid moments, glimpses that must have captured Jeremy's imagination. He had folded the corners so that when someone wanted to look, he could pass them by without it being obvious.

When he reached the blank pages in the back, he sighed, flipping the book over and lightly stroking the back cover with his thumb. After a moment, he noticed another folded corner, this one just a few pages in from the back cover, and he opened the book to it carefully. The words stretched over the page, endless and yet far too few for Damon's comfort.

_Damon, if you're reading this, I'm dead. That's a really bad cliché. Or, it will be. That's the point of this whole event, I suppose._

He read through the rest of the letter, and for just a minute, he stayed perfectly still in the bed. He couldn't think, not with so much blowing through his head, and then it was like that damned button simply popped back up. The rage coursed through him, sent the book flying across the room, and when the girl sat up, pulling the blanket closer to her, Damon grasped a handful of her hair. He bent her back, breathed in her fear, and licked the length of her throat.

A quick glance to one side assured him that the youth was still sleeping, and he sank his teeth into the girl's throat before she could scream. He didn't want her calm, didn't want to compel her to not fight him. He wanted the fear, the excitement in her blood. He drank too deeply, and by the time he dropped her off of the edge of the bed, she was just barely breathing. He licked his lips but didn't clean up as he rolled over to where he was straddling the young man's hips.

Those dark eyes opened slowly, and he even started to stretched before he noticed Damon leaning down over him. Before he saw the blood. His eyes widened, he swallowed, and Damon watched his throat work, watched the muscles moving under the skin. He could hear the heartbeat speeding up, and as he lowered his mouth to press a soft, blood-laced kiss to the soft skin of that throat, he heard it skip a beat.

"_As-tu peur_?" Damon licked the blood off of the youth's skin, a small smile forming when he nodded quickly. He would have been an idiot to try to claim that he _wasn't_ frightened. When he started to speak, Damon kissed him, cutting off any words. He didn't want to hear him begging for his life. Jeremy hadn't begged. Jeremy—

He bit then, his eyes closing at the taste of the blood over his tongue. There was a low moan, and then nothing as Damon bit harder, let the blood rush into his mouth. By the time he pushed the boy off of the bed, he was dead. Damon sat up, tilted his head back and closed his eyes, just letting the rush that came with the death wash over him.

Jeremy wouldn't have approved.

* * *

Damon fell back against the car's seat, tapping his fingers against the wheel. Jeremy was sitting beside him, and he leaned back until his head was against the headrest. For a minute, they were quiet, and then Jeremy asked him softly, "Are you taking me home?"

Another tap against the wheel. "I should," Damon replied, but he knew that he wasn't. Not right away. "I guess this is fate, right?" It was as close as he was going to get, at least. He reached into his pocket and withdrew the bracelet that he'd been unable to let go of over the years. He rubbed a finger over the metal, and then he leaned over to clip it around Jeremy's wrist.

Jeremy didn't let him draw back though; instead, he caught Damon's hand and pushed the shirt sleeve up just enough to reveal an identical bracelet. Damon smiled faintly at the look of shock on Jeremy's face.

"When did you find that?"

Damon looked away, toward the house, wanting to make certain that Stefan wasn't stalking out yet to find them. "In the twenties." It had been a tiny thrift store, one that he couldn't even figure out why he'd wandered into. It had been his first few days back on American soil, some fifty years after Paris. "It was the first time I thought there might be some truth to your letter. No Vervain in mine."

He let Jeremy rub his thumb over the bracelet for a few more heartbeats, savoring the feel of Jeremy _touching_ him. It was almost as good as the kisses, and how the hell was that even possible? He slid his arm out of Jeremy's grip and cranked the car. "Your dad will be wondering why you're not at school. I'm sure they've called him by now."

"Yeah."

Something about the way he said it made Damon look over at him, and Damon eased the car onto the road slowly. Jeremy relaxed marginally, propping his elbow up in the window, letting his arm hang out of the car. Damon didn't stop him.

"You're not eighteen," he finally said, and he bristled for a moment at Jeremy's laughter.

"You've been waiting to say that, haven't you?" Jeremy tapped his fingers over the car door before he shook his head slowly. "No. I'm fifteen." He stumbled over the word though, and Damon's eyes narrowed. There was more going on to this than what Jeremy had told him. He supposed that he couldn't be surprised. Something that involved over one hundred and forty-five years of deceit couldn't possibly have been explained in a simple letter.

"Jailbait," Damon decided, and he was pleased to see Jeremy's grin widen. It had been far too long since he'd seen that expression. He wanted to run Jeremy through the gauntlet, see every nuance of emotion written across that face that he'd been unable to see before that moment.

"Yeah, I guess I am." Jeremy chuckled as he relaxed a little more, and when he spoke again, his voice was so quiet that had Damon been human, he might have missed it. "Damon, is this all real? Is it really over?"

Damon couldn't stop himself from snorting. "Nothing's over, Jeremy. You're fifteen. This is just beginning." He glanced over at Jeremy and watched as the smile faded, as the realization sank in that no matter what he'd been through, he had even more ahead of him. "But at least this will actually be your fight," Damon amended, and he was rewarded with another faint smile.

"Here. Put this on." Damon reached in the backseat of the car and pulled out a dark gray t-shirt and a black hoodie. "Can't drive you home without something on."

"Were you here last year?" Jeremy looked down as he pulled on the slightly-too-small shirt. He settled back against the seat only after he zipped the hoodie up.

Damon raised an eyebrow, and he shook his head. "No. Stefan was."

Jeremy made a low noise, and then he asked, "Does... Does Stefan drink human blood?"

"Why are you asking about Stefan?" Damon pulled the car over, his eyes narrowing as he looked at Jeremy. For a moment, he didn't think Jeremy was going to answer him— for a minute, all Damon could think of was the way Jeremy held out a hand to Stefan, how Jeremy came so willingly to that forsaken clearing _with Stefan_. Jeremy's hand lifted and touched the side of Damon's face.

"My dad was supposed to die in a car accident last year," Jeremy whispered, and Damon's doubt cleared just as suddenly as it had wrapped around him.

There was something wrong with him, something that went far deeper than simply being a vampire. He felt out of control. He heard himself asking Jeremy something— Yeah? Did Stefan save him this time then?— but he didn't _care_. He wanted to push Jeremy back into the seat of the car, wanted to tilt his head and bite him, wanted to _taste_ him again. He wanted to be inside of Jeremy, to brand him to the point that no one could look at him and _not_ know that he belonged to Damon.

Slowly, Damon forced his fingers to relax around the steering wheel. Jeremy was saying something about Stefan only drinking animal blood and being slower than he would have been had he been drinking people. Damon drew a breath.

"He tried to do that once. I would have killed him had Lexi not been there." That had been the first time that Damon had seen Stefan since Jeremy's death. Since Damon had convinced himself that Jeremy's death lay squarely on Stefan's shoulders.

Jeremy nodded slowly, and Damon wondered when Jeremy's approval had become a thing that he wanted. Had he ever really gotten past wanting to think that Jeremy would like what he did? Refusing to think about it any longer, Damon pulled the car back onto the road and drove without another word to the Gilbert house. Jeremy glanced up at the front door, and Damon's eyebrow raised.

"You look like it's going to eat you, Jeremy," he said lowly, leaning down to glance up at the house. At the perfectly normal looking house.

"Dad will be in there. He's supposed to be dead. He's been dead for a year. … And I have to explain why I cut the first day of school."

Damon looked over at him, and then he sighed, killed the engine, and stepped out of the car. "Let's get to it then." He grinned at Jeremy's blind panic and headed to the door, knocking briskly before Jeremy could stop him. Jeremy stood just behind him, sighing loudly.

When the door opened, Damon offered his very best smile and held out his hand. "Mr. Gilbert?"

Jeremy's father shook his hand. "Doctor Grayson Gilbert. What can I do for you? Jeremy, are you okay? Come in."

"Grayson. I'm Damon Salvatore. Zach's nephew?" He let his smile widen marginally when Grayson nodded, and he stepped into the house, shooting Jeremy a quick look to make sure that he followed suit. "Well, I am volunteering at the school, and Jeremy wasn't feeling very well this morning. I guess the excitement of the new year got to him."

He ignored the pointed eye-roll from Jeremy and let Grayson lead him into the living area where they both took a seat on the couch. "He managed to ah... ruin his shirt." He hesitated, and then asked, "You're a medical doctor?" When Grayson nodded, Damon leaned forward. "I'm afraid it might be some kind of stomach bug. He was pretty pale when I found him."

"Jeremy, why don't you go lay down? I'll be up to check on you in a few minutes."

Damon watched as Jeremy hesitated, clearly wanting to stay, to hear what Damon told Grayson. He needn't have worried. Damon had an invitation into the house now. Jeremy would be seeing a lot of him.


	2. Discovering

**Title**: Footsteps of a Traveler  
**Author**: Traxits  
**Chapter Rating**: Teen for mild sexual tension.  
**Chapter Content Notes**: Mild sexual tension, kissing.  
**Chapter Word Count**: 4078 words.  
**Author's Notes**: Many thanks to all of the wonderful comments that I got on chapter one! I appreciate all of the support so much more than I can possibly tell you. Much love to _all_ of you.

**New Notes on 12/19/12**: I have added another scene at the end of this chapter in preparation for chapter 3. Please re-read this chapter!

**[[ … Chapter 2: Discovering … ]]**

"Dad, really. I'm fine. It was just nerves." Jeremy reached up and rubbed the back of his neck. "More embarrassing than anything." But his father didn't seem to be listening to him. Instead, he sat on the edge of the bed and put his hand against Jeremy's forehead. Jeremy felt his pulse jump at the contact, at the familiarity of something he'd finally resigned himself to admitting that he'd never have again.

"I know you miss her, Jer," his father murmured, and he let his hand slide up just enough to ruffle Jeremy's hair. "We all do."

"It's not fair," Jeremy whispered, and he couldn't stop his throat from tightening, couldn't stop the way his breath hitched. His father's pulled him close, and Jeremy let himself sink against that solid chest, let himself savor a touch that he'd almost forgotten. It wasn't fair. Why did his father get to live, but not his mother? How had she even died?

"No, champ. It's not." His father hugged him just a little more tightly, until Jeremy could stop himself from crying. Only then did he get up, lightly push Jeremy back against the bed, and pull the blankets up. "Now, get some sleep. You have school tomorrow."

The door had barely closed before the window opened, and Jeremy blinked very slowly up at Damon. A hand was already pressed against his forehead, and Damon was frowning, as though he had to reassure himself that he hadn't made Jeremy sick by inventing the excuse. Jeremy wrinkled his nose, but he knew better than to try to stop Damon. Damon would do whatever Damon wanted to do.

"How much have you changed? What's different?" Damon's eyes narrowed, and Jeremy had to stop himself from making certain that he still had his bracelet on. It was strange to see Damon this intense, this driven, especially after spending so many months with him before he'd turned. The past one hundred and forty-five years had changed him. Jeremy supposed that it would have changed anyone.

"I don't know yet. I haven't actually had enough time to make a list, you know?" Jeremy sighed and glanced toward the door before he looked back at Damon. He frowned when he realized that Damon was looking past him, his eyes locked on the door that led to the bathroom and, just beyond that, Elena's room. "She's not Katherine," he said quietly.

"How does that work? You're you, but she's not?"

Jeremy sighed. "It's an unrelated issue. I got sent back by accident. There's only one of me. Elena... she's a doppelgänger. She and Katherine are separate beings, related only in the fact that Katherine's her ancestor." He pulled his legs up on the bed, self-consciously tugging on the ends of his pajama pants' legs.

"But not yours?" Damon's eyes finally moved from the door to look up at Jeremy, and he stretched out over the bed. He looked ridiculously at ease given that Jeremy had never seen him lay on that bed. But then, Damon was the kind of guy who looked comfortable in any bed that he touched, Jeremy was pretty sure of that much.

"I don't know," he answered after just a minute. "She's not... Elena isn't my sister by blood. She's my cousin. Uncle John is her father. She doesn't know yet."

"How do you know?" Damon folded his arms under his head.

"I'm supposed to be sixteen, not fifteen. Emily must have used the comet in order to power the spell.." Jeremy waved a hand, trying to indicate that they were rapidly getting out the bounds that he understood. Damon reached up and caught his hand, frowned at the chipped black polish on the nails, and sighed loudly. Jeremy blinked as he heard Damon pass by but didn't see anything more than a faint blur.

Then Damon was back with the bottle of acetone and a handful of cotton balls from the bathroom. Jeremy laughed a little as he realized what Damon was about to do. "What are you? A teenage girl?" He didn't jerk his hand away though, even as Damon raised an eyebrow and started to take off the polish.

"I'm not the one who wears nail polish," Damon shot back. His eyes lowered to Jeremy's hand, and Jeremy tried to ignore the way his heart seemed to thud even louder in his chest. Damon's smug grin did little to help that effort though. "If you're going to wear polish, it's going to look right. This chipped crap is terrible."

"You just want an excuse to touch me," Jeremy murmured, and his breath caught at the way Damon's head lifted.

"I need an excuse?" Damon leaned up, and Jeremy made a low noise as Damon stopped just out of reach. His lips were maybe an inch from Jeremy's, and briefly, Jeremy spared a thought for the bottle of acetone that Damon had, at some point, set on the nightstand. "You don't _want_ me touching you?"

"Damon..." Jeremy swallowed, and then he leaned forward. He scowled when Damon leaned back just enough to maintain the distance. "That's not fair."

"Not fair?" Damon laughed softly, but it was silky, dangerous, and then his hands were in Jeremy's hair, holding him still, keeping him exactly where Damon wanted him. Jeremy shivered, and he must have made some sort of noise when Damon's lips brushed over his, because Damon smiled, the slightest flash of teeth. The very tip of his tongue touched Jeremy's bottom lip, and Jeremy closed his eyes, well aware that this was a lesson in who was in control.

Damon didn't kiss him though, only pushed his tongue farther into Jeremy's mouth until he licked Jeremy's tongue. Then the touch was gone, and Damon's lips moved just over Jeremy's, whispering into his mouth, "Not fair was you deciding to leave me for one hundred and forty-five years, Jeremy."

Jeremy jerked back— tried to, at least— but Damon held him fast. When Jeremy started to say something, Damon's finger touched his lips, stopping him before he could even get his mouth open.

"Not fair was leaving me a fucking letter," Damon's hand tightened around the hair he was still holding, "and expecting everything to be exactly the same when you finally did show up. Not fair was letting me fall for you when you knew that you couldn't stay, knew that you were going to make that choice for me."

Damon kissed him then, with his finger still in between their mouths, and when he drew back, he was breathing a little more harshly than Jeremy would have expected. Granted, Jeremy realized after just a moment, it wasn't like Jeremy was the epitome of self-control either. He licked Damon's finger, and when Damon finally pulled his hand away, Jeremy looked up at him.

"I didn't leave you," he said quietly, his own hands lifting to bury themselves into Damon's hair. "I died, Damon." He hadn't thought the entire thing through, he knew that. He was very aware that he had apparently tortured Damon in practically the exact same way that Katherine had before. "You could cut me some slack," he added, and he felt his stomach clench when he didn't get even the faintest smile from Damon.

Instead, Damon pulled back farther, until they weren't touching one another, until he was sitting on the opposite end of the bed. "You didn't have to. Emily didn't have to cast that damned spell right then."

"What would have been different?" Jeremy frowned, and he started to reach out again, to close the distance between them himself, but he couldn't make himself do it. _Damon_ had been the one to move away, the one to separate them. "You and I could have lived happily ever after in 1864, Damon? Was that your big master plan? I'd be dead now in that case!"

Damon's eyes cut over toward the door, and Jeremy cursed under his breath, well aware that he was being loud. Much louder and someone would come in to check on him. "Damon, this was the only way."

"Not the only way, Jeremy."

But before Jeremy could say anything, the door was opening and Damon was gone, the open window the only sign that he'd ever been there to begin with. Jeremy sighed as he looked toward the door. Elena wrinkled her nose a little, her hand holding open the door as she surveyed the room.

"Is that my nail polish remover?" She walked over to the bed, spied the bottle and the cotton balls on the nightstand, and she smiled so brilliantly at him that Jeremy forgot he was supposed to be angry with her. He couldn't be, not after months of staring at Katherine, at watching Katherine twist and use Elena's face to do and say such horrible things.

He wrapped his arms around her middle, buried his face against her stomach, and hugged her close, and she laughed a little before she let her hand brush against his hair. He was muffled against her shirt when he managed a quiet, "I'm sorry for getting angry this morning."

She made a soft noise and eased him back onto the bed before she sat beside him. Without asking, she picked up the cotton ball that Damon had been using and started to take off the last of the polish. "It's okay, Jer," she said, offering him another smile. "You weren't feeling well. Besides, I just can't believe I was so... out of it that I didn't notice. Tomorrow will be different."

"When we smile tomorrow, it will be believable," Jeremy murmured, and he knew, knew, from Elena's face that their mother must have died during the car accident. Or, at the very least, she had died around the same time.

_I will no longer be the sad little girl who lost her parents._ She had written that in her journal before he had changed things, before The Trip— as he had begun to label it. Had she written something similar this time? _I will no longer be the sad little girl who lost her mother?_

He watched Elena as she worked, her smile faltering just a little. She didn't look up though, didn't give him any indication that she thought he might have read her journal. Maybe she hadn't written it then.

They stayed quiet as she finished his nails, and after raising an eyebrow at him, she carefully painted a fresh coat of black over them. It wasn't until she had wished him a goodnight, had taken her things back into the bathroom that he realized something.

When had his nails been painted?

He stared at them for several minutes, his brow furrowing. From Elena's reaction, his hair had changed when he had come back. He had clearly carried the wounds with him, but he hadn't painted his nails black in 1864, and he hadn't had time to do it since he had returned.

He felt his breath hitch, felt the prickle of unease running under his skin as he stared at the glossy black polish. It was the only remnants of their Jeremy. He had replaced their Jeremy, stepped into the time flow and just... overwritten him.

Jeremy bit his bottom lip.

_He'd murdered himself._

He didn't sleep much that night, went through his morning routine mechanically, and without a word, he caught a ride with Bonnie and Elena on their way to school. Bonnie didn't even seem to notice him in the backseat, and she was laughing and cheerfully chatting about being a psychic. Jeremy wondered if she had any idea how much that idea was going to change her life.

For the second time in as many days, he bolted the instant that the car stopped, and it wasn't until he reached his locker that he let himself stop. He pulled out his backpack, closed the locker, and simply leaned his forehead against it for a moment. He couldn't stop himself from thinking, couldn't make himself let it go. Suddenly, there was a hand over his eyes, and Jeremy gasped as someone whispered in his ear, "Guess who?"

Jeremy's heart stopped and he breathed out the name— Anna— before he spun around and wrapped his arms around her. Her eyes widened, but she kept her smile as she laughed and patted him on the arm, glancing down the hall.

"Jeremy! It's not like we didn't spend all summer together!" She reached up and pushed her hair back, and Jeremy let her go slowly, forcing his arms to drop back to his sides.

"You and your mom made it out then?" He shouldn't ask, shouldn't let her know that anything was different. But he had to. He needed someone besides Damon and Stefan, and he couldn't tell Elena. Not yet, at the very least.

Her eyes widened a little more, and she wrapped her hand around his arm, staring at him intently. "You remember?" Her pupils narrowed to pinpricks, but Jeremy didn't care. He had his bracelet on.

"Long story. What are you doing here, Anna? When did you get here?"

She hesitated, and after just a minute, she pulled him into the nearest empty classroom. School wasn't scheduled to start just yet, so they still had a few minutes. The classroom wouldn't fill until the bell rang, after all. She hoisted herself up onto the first desk that they reached, pulling Jeremy close to her. Anyone walking by would just have mistaken them for a couple looking for a private place to sneak some kisses. Jeremy wasn't entirely sure how he felt about that.

"I came back to Mystic Falls a few months ago. You don't remember that?" She took his hands in hers, and she made a low noise as she traced the scar across his palm. Jeremy felt his heart racing. He had used the same hand to feed both Anna and Damon. Somehow, seeing her fingertips sliding over the scar made him feel dirty. Cheap.

He jerked his hand back. "No. I remember the round-up, and I remember yesterday. I woke up here. It's a really long story, Anna."

"You really did travel through time." Anna laughed a little, and Jeremy frowned as he looked at her. "I read your letter to Damon," she explained softly. "Stole that damned book from him a few years ago. Got it back to him before he could kill me for it." She reached up and touched the side of Jeremy's face, as though she couldn't believe it. "You look exactly the same."

"You don't." Jeremy glanced over her, a faint smile on his face. "Is your mother okay? She... she did get out." He wasn't certain if it was a question or not.

Anna's smile widened. "She did. We did, thanks to you. I'd ask how you did it, but it doesn't really matter, does it? I'm glad that you're okay. Damon said that you'd died—"

"He did die."

Jeremy shivered at the sound of that voice, at the feel of Damon's fingers wrapping around his wrist and pulling him back, away from Anna. He turned around to look up at Damon, and he wondered for just a moment how Damon had gotten into the room without Jeremy hearing the door. A quick glance answered that question: Damon had simply left it open.

"Am I breaking up your little _tête-à-tête_, Jeremy?" Damon pulled him in close, and Jeremy made a low noise. He couldn't stop himself, couldn't control his response when Damon was like that. He looked back toward the door, and he quickly made himself step away. He needed the distance in between them so that he could think. The last thing he needed was it getting around the school that he was in some kind of relationship with Damon Salvatore.

"Not at all, Damon," Anna responded, sliding off of the desk. She offered him a brilliant smile, and Jeremy envied her for her ability to do so at a moment's notice. She didn't step any closer to Damon. If anything, she looked ready to run, ready to get some distance of her own in between herself and Damon. "We were just talking. First time since he got back." She hesitated only briefly before she lowered her voice and added, "He saved my life, Damon. I wanted to thank him."

Damon glanced between both of them, and Jeremy watched his hand clench before he finally forced it to relax. His expression never changed though. He still managed to somehow look at ease. "Did you thank him then?"

Anna sighed loudly, rolling her eyes as she turned to look at Jeremy. "Thank you for saving my life in 1864, Jeremy," she said, and she held out her hand. Jeremy glanced up at Damon, who nodded just slightly, before he took her hand and shook it slightly.

"You're welcome, Anna." He felt like he was being graded, judged on how he reacted to her. Granted, Damon had spent over a hundred years carrying the belief that he'd murdered Jeremy. He supposed some possessive tendencies were to be expected.

Damon nodded sharply, and their hands dropped to their sides. He pointed toward the door, and Anna ducked her head with a little smile. She cast one look toward Jeremy— _see you in class_, she mouthed— and then she disappeared into the hall, pulling the door shut behind her. There were just a few more people now, beginning to mill around and grab their things from their lockers. The bell would be ringing soon.

Jeremy grabbed Damon's hand, pulled him back into the one corner that afforded them some degree of privacy. He didn't— couldn't— hesitate as he pressed a quick kiss to Damon's lips. He was trying to reassure him, to give him some degree of comfort in whatever screwed up relationship they had managed to find themselves in.

Damon kissed him back softly, sweetly, and when he pulled back, he offered Jeremy the shakiest smile that Jeremy had ever seen on his face.

"What are you even doing here, Damon?" Jeremy asked lowly, and Damon stepped back, gave him some degree of normalcy. They didn't want anyone walking in on something awkward.

Damon glanced down at his hand for a moment, and when his eyes lifted again, Jeremy shivered. "You really don't remember, do you?" A slow smile spread over his lips. "I have an after-school art program, Jeremy." He pitched his voice low and added, "You'll sign up for it, won't you?"

Somehow, Jeremy doubted that he was agreeing to just art.

* * *

The after-school art program clearly had not been Damon's brightest plan. He'd spent the entire afternoon staring at Jeremy, smelling Jeremy, remembering the taste of Jeremy's blood on his tongue. It had been his very own special brand of hell. Had he been more like Stefan, he might have considered it penance, of a sort.

He'd always intended to use the program as an excuse to get closer to Jeremy. Stefan and Zach had both been aware of that, and while Zach had some reservations about it, Stefan had assured him that he would be there to keep Damon in check. As though Stefan could hold his own against Damon. Even with him drinking human blood, Damon was the better killer because he wasn't afraid of it.

As he leaned over some kid's shoulder to look at their work, his eyes cut across the room toward Jeremy.

Hadn't been afraid of it.

Hell, he didn't know what he was thinking any more. If he was thinking at all.

He'd never expected to see Jeremy again. Not _his_ Jeremy.

But then again, this wasn't his Jeremy exactly, was he? He wasn't quite tall enough, even if he did still have most of the muscle that Damon hadn't remembered him having until he'd seen the present Jeremy for the first time. It was as though his body had compromised when he came back, split the differences between the two, halving how bad the scars were, halving how much height and muscle he'd gained. And clearly Jeremy had noticed, because he kept fidgeting in the chair, kept shifting and sketching and then trashing it only to start all over again.

Maybe that wasn't just the discomfort from how much his body had changed. Maybe it had something to do with the way Jeremy's eyes kept darting up to glance over at Damon, before they darted down to focus again on the paper he was drawing on. Damon grinned slightly as he worked his way around, making himself stop and critique, reminding himself that if he actually wanted to keep this class, it would need to be something that could stand up to scrutiny.

Not that he was so sure he still wanted it. Not if Jeremy remembered and he didn't have to win him over, coax his way into Jeremy's graces again.

When he reached Jeremy's sketchpad, he stayed there for a second, just watching him draw. How many times had he seen Jeremy drawing back in 1864? How many times had he tried to remember what it looked like, remember the way Jeremy's fingers smoothed over the paper, blurring his own pencil lines without seeming to realize it? He could feel his grin softening as Jeremy smudged some of the edges, giving the impression of shadow and form to his sketch of the objects Damon had stacked in the middle of the room, and Damon drew a deeper breath as he leaned in over Jeremy's shoulder. He could still smell the lake and the blood (his own blood, his human blood), even though Jeremy had showered. He could smell the soap and the shampoo too.

"I've always enjoyed watching you draw," he murmured quietly into Jeremy's ear, and Jeremy jerked, looked up at him with wide eyes that made his grin sharpen. Then he made himself move on to the next kid, reminding himself that he'd been the one deciding to do this. And he'd known that he wouldn't be able to linger on Jeremy alone. He hadn't wanted to put him in that sort of situation, where the gossip would push him away from Damon after all.

He glanced back at Jeremy though, and no matter how good the other kids were, they weren't Jeremy. He was perhaps moderately biased.

By the time the class let out, he'd had enough of this penance thing, was willing to just walk out and drag Jeremy with him, find somewhere they could be alone and—

He glanced up at a slight rustling noise, watched as Jeremy started to move the objects he'd piled up for them to draw.

"Staying behind to clean up, Jeremy?" he asked, grin widening sharply, and Jeremy smiled back at him, tossing a ball between his hands before he put it back on the shelf where Damon had found it.

"Seems fair. You started an art program for me, after all."

"Is that what I did?"

"Well, you sure didn't do it in the present I came from," Jeremy retorted, and he glanced up at Damon, his smile warming. "I... What were you planning on doing? Seducing me?"

"Something like that," Damon replied, and he stepped in close to Jeremy, breathing him in again. He didn't think he'd ever get enough of that smell, of the way he could smell his blood very slightly on Jeremy's skin. "Planned on something with you at least."

"You're always planning something." Jeremy leaned in close to him in response, and Damon reached up, brushed his fingers against Jeremy's hair, getting it back out of his face. "I'm glad you're here," he said quietly, and Damon raised an eyebrow, trying to ignore the way those words hit, the way he had been, on some level, waiting to hear them.

"Like I'd be somewhere else," he muttered, and he wrapped his arms around Jeremy. He could hear the other kids, but they were across the building by now, spilling out into the parking lot where rides and cars waited, or where friends who had participated in other after-school activities waited. Jeremy had been planning on walking home, so there was no ride for him. No ride except Damon's car, of course. Damon's fingers skated up Jeremy's back, and he enjoyed the way Jeremy shivered for his, his hand coming up to tangle his own fingers in Damon's shirt.

He enjoyed it all the way up until Jeremy _flickered_, vanishing for just a second, Damon's fingers going right through him before he reappeared. Damon snarled instinctively, his hold tightening on Jeremy as he hissed, "The hell is that?"

Jeremy's eyes were wide as he looked at Damon, swallowing and shaking his head half-helplessly. "Damon, I have no idea. What's going on?"


	3. Flickering

**Title**: Footsteps of a Traveler  
**Author**: Traxits  
**Chapter Rating**: Teen for mild sexual tension.  
**Chapter Content Notes**: Mild sexual tension, kissing.  
**Chapter Word Count**: 4078 words.  
**Author's Notes**: After over two years hiatus, I think I might be planning on finally finishing this story! We'll see. I also feel the need to point out that for this story, I set the beginning of Wings of a Butterfly about midway through Season Two, somewhere around episode fourteen. This means that Jeremy's information could be inaccurate according to current canon! He is limited by what he knows and understands up to that point.

**Please reread chapter two before reading this chapter!** I added a new scene to the end of it on 12/19/12 that contains a major plot point, and this chapter will not make sense unless you read that scene first!

**[[ … Chapter 3: Flickering … ]]**

Eventually, Jeremy had to go back home, but it didn't mean that Damon had to let him out of his sight, especially not with the memory of Jeremy vanishing like that right there, so fresh in his mind. So when Jeremy headed home and went upstairs, Damon smiled as he spotted the window open. He didn't need more invitation than that, and he crawled inside, perching on the edge of Jeremy's bed. Jeremy smiled shakily at him, and Damon let him wander around the room for a few minutes, poking things and dropping his bag and setting out books for the illusion that maybe he was actually going to think about homework tonight. Then Damon held out a hand and Jeremy looked at him, swallowed, and came to him. Damon pulled him down onto the bed, and he leaned in close, his lips brushing against Jeremy's throat.

He could feel Jeremy's pulse picking up, and he licked lightly, his eyes closing for it. So good, so vulnerable, so trusting.

"Damon," Jeremy breathed, and Damon hummed softly, not pulling back. If anything, he found himself pulling Jeremy closer, his fingers sliding up Jeremy's back, touching him because he was there, because this was real and after one hundred and forty five years, he could touch Jeremy again. Jeremy made this low little noise, and Damon scraped his teeth over his neck lightly.

He wouldn't bite him there. Not where it would be seen. Not where Jeremy might have to explain anything. He could give Jeremy his blood to heal it, but... he wanted Jeremy to wear his bite. He wanted to be able to brush his fingers over it and see the little flush that he bet would come up in Jeremy's face for the reminder. But it didn't stop him from teasing, and Jeremy made another sound, this one edging onto a breathy moan. Damon wanted to know what other noises he could get out of Jeremy like this.

"Damon, wait, we... what're we doing? Just pretending it didn't happen?"

That was a wash of cold down Damon's back, and he pulled back with a sigh, narrowing his eyes and raising an eyebrow at Jeremy. "Can you? Pretend it didn't happen?"

"Well, no—"

"There's your answer then." Damon's teeth gritted at the thought. He'd much rather just have Jeremy, not think about the idea that he might just vanish like that all over again and there was nothing he could do. Again. He hated feeling helpless. His hands dug in against Jeremy's back.

"Damon..." Jeremy blinked at him, and then he shook his head, and he leaned in close, reaching up, his fingers tangling in Damon's shirt on his side. "I don't want it to happen again. This is weird enough. I don't need that too."

"It's not going to happen again," Damon said immediately, his hold tightening. Jeremy's mouth tensed, and Damon was holding on too tight, he could tell, but hell if he could make himself let go. Not when he hadn't gotten to touch Jeremy in so long. "It isn't."

"You can't know that, Damon," Jeremy said quietly, and Damon swallowed, leaning in to press his face against Jeremy's throat. He grazed his teeth over Jeremy's pulse again. He could taste the lake on his skin. Taste that last night he'd been human on Jeremy's skin, and it was addictive, knowing that for Jeremy it had only been the other night.

He didn't have the memories Stefan did of what Damon had done, what he'd become, didn't even have the memories that this Jeremy had possessed, when Damon had been struggling to figure out exactly what was going on. Compelling Jeremy had been easy, even easier when he realized that this Jeremy didn't know about vampires yet. But it... it hadn't been his Jeremy. The one in his arms now was. This Jeremy had fought beside him in the trenches, had sparred with Katherine and Giuseppe and had helped vampires escape their deaths on that fateful night.

He'd been the one to feed Damon, make certain that he survived.

"I can't," he said lowly, and his throat tightened, threatening to cut the words off, "lose you."

"Again. I know. I can't... You won't, Damon," Jeremy whispered, and his voice was steadier than it really should have been. "I don't wanna go anywhere but here."

"Good," Damon murmured, and he pulled Jeremy's shirt down some, stretching out the collar so that he could get his mouth on Jeremy's shoulder. "I don't plan on letting you."

Jeremy whined very slightly, and Damon's gaze lifted just in time to watch his eyes close. He scraped his teeth over the skin on Jeremy's shoulder, and just as he started to consider biting him, he heard the front door open. His own eyes closed for a second before he pulled back. Jeremy blinked, lips parted slightly as he dragged in a breath, and he looked up at him, brow furrowing in confusion.

"Someone's home," Damon responded with a wry smile, and he drew back a little from Jeremy, sinking down to sit on the edge of the bed. He'd hear them if they started toward his bedroom door, so he wasn't worried about getting out in time. He just didn't want them walking in and Jeremy looking like that, flushed and breathing just a little hard. That was for him, and it was something he didn't plan on sharing with anyone.

He'd get Jeremy alone somewhere soon, he promised himself, somewhere that he could lay him out and really drink him in.

"Oh," Jeremy said after a moment, and he licked his bottom lip, glancing toward the door before he nodded. "Probably Elena."

"Or your father," Damon offered, raising an eyebrow.

"He... Maybe. I don't know his schedule now. Used to, he was at the hospital until late. Sometimes, Mom would go and get him just to keep him from being there all night." Jeremy dropped onto the bed beside him, sighing as he started to fold his legs under him. He stopped just long enough to kick his shoes off, and then he was sitting cross-legged, shrugging. For another minute, they were both quiet, and then Jeremy asked, his voice low, "Why didn't you kill her?"

Damon reached out to brush his hair back from his face, and he hummed a short, tuneless note. "Who?"

"Anna."

Damon tensed at her name, but Jeremy was looking at him, focused on him, one hand slowly coming up to brush his fingers against Damon's, so maybe there was nothing to be jealous about, maybe it was all in his head.

"She... she said she stole the journal. I'm surprised that... well."

"That I didn't tear her ass to pieces?" Damon finished, and he laughed. It wasn't a particularly pleasant laugh, but Jeremy didn't flinch at the sound of it, didn't pull away from him. Instead, he just nodded as he shifted how he was sitting so that he could inch a little closer. Damon snorted. "Started to. Injected her with vervain and locked her up." He'd been planning on starving her first, really driving home the fact that she shouldn't have messed with him, and touching that journal... well. Touching it was a death sentence anyway.

Jeremy nodded, and he leaned closer, his eyes narrowing. "What changed your mind?"

Damon's eyes drifted back over to him, and he smiled slightly at the curiosity on Jeremy's face. It wasn't laced with the horror that he expected, and part of him wanted to test that, wanted to tell him everything, one terrible thing at a time, just to see what it would take to twist that expression into the same look that Stefan had given him over the years. That Zach still gave him when he thought Damon wasn't paying him any attention.

"She said you saved her," he explained, and he wasn't sure that anyone else would understand, but Jeremy's expression smoothed out and he smiled, like he really did get it. "And I remembered how you looked at her. Your first, right?"

"Not like that," Jeremy said quickly, smile widening into a grin. "She was the first vampire that I really... that I knew she was a vampire. She was the one who taught me about them. You. About you." His fingers curled instinctively, and Damon reached for his hand, pulled it up to his mouth and licked across the scar there. Jeremy's eyes slid half closed, and he made another very slight whining noise for the drag of Damon's tongue over the skin. "Back before I messed everything up, I mean. This Anna... she doesn't really know me or anything. And hell, she's probably a completely different person now. Her mother survived. She didn't get locked under the church for forever."

Damon drew back from Jeremy's hand, raising an eyebrow sharply. "Under the church?"

Jeremy blinked, nodded, and he met Damon's eyes evenly. "Yeah. Originally, Emily cast a spell to protect the vampires under the church. It was supposed to save Katherine. But she didn't have time this go around. I got her away from the church too early."

"So Katherine..."

"She isn't dead, Damon. Not... I mean, okay, obviously, she's a vampire, but she wasn't killed in the church." Jeremy sighed, pulling away from Damon to turn and prop his feet up on the edge of the bed frame, his arms folding over his knees. "She was never in the church to begin with. She bribed one of the guards to get her out before they put her under there."

Damon looked at Jeremy for a long moment, trying to decide exactly how he felt about that, about Katherine and this whole mess that had become his unlife. It was funny, when he'd first started picturing this, he'd had a very different view of his future. He reached up and rubbed his forehead for just a second before he wrapped his arm over Jeremy's shoulders and pulled him in close. Jeremy stiffened and only relaxed after Damon made it obvious that he wasn't about to let him go anytime soon.

"Too bad," he finally said, and Jeremy twisted to look up at him. "I mean it."

"I... really? I thought you... you and she... you were so flirty back in 1863..."

Damon waved one of his hands, and Jeremy smiled faintly, gaze sliding down to stare at the carpet before he nodded, recognizing Damon's 'drop it' attitude.

"In any case, I don't know what all has changed here, Damon. I mean, I assume that under the church wasn't saved, but I guess Emily could have had time to cast the spell before I found her? I know she used the comet last time for that too. You needed a crystal—"

"What sort of crystal?"

"Some ugly brown crystal. You used Caroline to get it in my timeline. It was hidden somewhere, and Caroline managed to get it for you but she ended up giving it to Bonnie. Why are you asking?"

Damon hesitated, and then he shrugged, shifting on the bed until he was leaning back against the headboard and he could pull Jeremy in to lean against his chest. "Emily gave me a crystal back then. Told me to hold onto it. Said I'd need it."

Jeremy pushed off Damon's chest, looking back up at him sharply. "What for?"

"She never said. Just said I'd need it."

"What if... what if she tied me to it? Like she did the original spell for under the church? What if it would keep me from—"

Before Jeremy could say it, he flickered again, fading out of sight for just a second before he came back, and when he came back, Damon growled and held him too tight. He could practically feel Jeremy's wrist bruising under his hand, and Jeremy hissed between his teeth but he didn't fight Damon exactly. He didn't even try to get away from him, just looked at him, and Damon's hand opened suddenly, letting him go. The bruises were dark against his pale skin, and Damon blew out a breath before he bit his wrist and held it up to Jeremy's mouth.

He hesitated for a second, looking up at Damon, but before Damon could prompt him, he dipped his head down and licked the blood off his skin. There was a sharp coil of heat through him at the sight, and when Jeremy drew back, Damon wrapped a hand tight in his hair and pulled him up to kiss him. He was kissing his own blood out of Jeremy's mouth, and he growled very slightly for it. Jeremy was all pretty compliance, going wherever Damon pulled him.

He had no sense of self-preservation.

Damon pulled back after a heartbeat, and then he murmured lowly, "I hid it. The crystal. It's in the Fell house."

Jeremy was breathing hard as he nodded. "Founder's party," he said finally. "They're going to put all the old family treasures in one place. We can get it then. It's in a few days, I think. If I'm remembering right."

"You are," Damon said. "I didn't know they were going to put all the things in the same place though."

"It's what you needed Caroline for. She was going. Salvatores don't get an invite anymore, do you?"

That smile would have been much sharply had Jeremy been breathing normally. As it stood, it was just charming, and Damon laughed at it, leaning in to brush another quick kiss to Jeremy's mouth. "No. We don't."

Jeremy's smile softened, and he leaned back down, putting his ear against Damon's chest and laying on him, relaxing and letting Damon hold his weight. "I can get it. Gilberts always get invites."

"Just think," Damon murmured, his fingers stroking idly through Jeremy's hair, "you'll get to go and see your signature."

Jeremy laughed, and he reached up, one of his hands brushing against Damon's waist. "What do you think, my dad named me for the mysterious cousin who came in and vanished the night of the vampire round-up?"

"Johnathan thought you died that night," Damon murmured, a smile quirking his lips. "You were counted among the civilian casualties. He assumed that whatever tore Giuseppe apart got you as well. Broke his heart."

"I wonder if he wrote about me then. If I'm in the journals. I wonder if he wrote the Louisiana Gilberts to inform them of the sad loss of their youngest." Another little laugh, but this one was a touch more hysterical than the last, and Damon's hand gained a little weight as he stroked it down Jeremy's back. "I'm sure it confused them if he did."

"He was eccentric, to say the least. Most of his neighbors considered him mad by the time he passed. I am sure that any tales he might have told his family were colored by that," Damon offered, and Jeremy relaxed fractionally under his hand.

He glanced up when he heard footsteps— too light to be Dr. Gilbert, so it was probably Elena again— and he gently moved Jeremy, getting his weight off Damon's chest just in case she knocked, in case he needed to bolt. Her footsteps stopped by the door, he was so focused on it he thought he could hear her breathing, and then she moved on, heading to her own door instead. Jeremy blew out a little sigh of relief when Damon relaxed.

"I don't know how to talk to her," he admitted quietly, glancing up at Damon, and Damon reached over to brush his hair back from his face. "I mean, she's been the one who always knows what's going on, but she doesn't even know Stefan is a vampire yet."

"Why does it matter that she know Stefan is a vampire?"

"They're... a couple. Dating. You know. She really loves him." Jeremy sighed as he shoved his hand through his hair, and then he leaned back on the bed, eyeing the door that led to the bathroom they shared. "It'd be weird if they're not here."

"Look at you, the little matchmaker," Damon replied, and he laughed softly, keeping his attention on Jeremy's face. He couldn't get enough of it. Not after having waited for so long to see it again, see the way Jeremy wrinkled his nose and threw a playful punch, laughing at him.

"Shut up," he muttered, but he was grinning, undercutting his own serious tone, and Damon's smile widened for it. He'd missed that too.

He leaned in, brushed his mouth against Jeremy's, and when Jeremy's lips parted on a slight, startled noise, he breathed, "Make me." Then he was kissing Jeremy again, licking his way into Jeremy's mouth and stroking his fingers against the side of Jeremy's face before he dropped his hand to tangle in Jeremy's shirt, holding him close. When he finally pulled back, it took Jeremy a second or two in order to focus enough to look up at him. Then he smiled slowly, the motion easy and pleased. Damon wanted to keep it on him forever.

"Don't gotta," he retorted. "You do it all on your own."

Damon grinned, and he bit Jeremy's bottom lip sharply. He didn't make him bleed, but only because Damon wasn't sure he'd be able to make himself stop if he did. The last time he'd drank Jeremy's blood after all, he'd drained him dry. Killed him.

Then again, with that ring on, he could do it as many times as he wanted.

The thought had merit, if only so that Damon could keep being the first thing Jeremy saw every time he came back.

"Only when it's in my favor," he replied, and he drew back, shrugging slightly as he got a little space between them. He had to be careful how much he let himself touch Jeremy. That sort of thought... he didn't want to destroy him. Just have him.

"Bet you only do anything when it's in your favor."

"It's the only time you should do anything," Damon replied, and he moved across the room, heading to the window. Jeremy stayed on the bed, sensing his mood maybe, sensing that he needed to keep a little distance until Damon got himself back under control. "It should always be in your favor."

"You do things when they're in my favor," Jeremy said, and Damon glanced back at him when he heard him move. Jeremy was folding one leg under him, pulling the other up to wrap his arms around. He looked incredibly small on the bed like that, and Damon's fingers flexed. He wanted to touch him. When had he ever wanted to do anything different?

"Don't be stupid," he retorted automatically, and he stayed right where he was by the window. He could hear Elena rustling around in her room, moving things and doing things, probably getting ready to curl up and write in her journal. He'd spent enough time learning the rhythms of this house to know their routine. Jeremy moved then, pushing off the bed and coming to him, reaching out to touch him with all that ridiculous bravery that Damon had decided years ago he had to be exaggerating when he remembered him.

Perhaps he'd underestimated it after all.

"It's true. You tried to protect me. There was nothing in that for you."

"More in it for me than you realize," Damon corrected, and he drew back from Jeremy— he'd never, in all the years of imagining his first few days back with him, pictured that he'd be retreating from him nearly so much— to keep himself from pulling him in close all over again. He wanted to feel him, wanted to feel his heartbeat, feel him breathing and taste his skin. He wanted to relearn what Jeremy's skin felt like, wanted to see how much he'd imagined and how much was memory, and he just wanted Jeremy, wanted all of him. Jeremy stood there, between Damon and the window now, and he was staring at him, brow furrowing and a little hurt in his eyes.

He hadn't been expecting Damon to draw back from him.

Damon wanted to hurt him more. He deserved it after what he did, after he just took every option away from Damon, after—

He stopped himself there, and he waved a hand, bringing his attention back to the present, back to this. Back to Jeremy. (Had his attention ever, at any point, really left him?)

"You still have to get caught up here," he said then, and Jeremy's eyes widened before he nodded.

"Things are different," he agreed, and he sighed, reaching up to rub the back of his neck with one hand. "I fucked up. I wasn't going to mess with anything, wasn't going to change anything, and then... I just..."

"It was different, wasn't it? Watching them die instead of just reading about it or knowing they would." Damon had to close the distance between them again then, and his hands curved over Jeremy's shoulders, pulled his back against Damon's chest while Jeremy glanced over his shoulder at him.

"Yeah. I wasn't prepared for it really. I mean, they weren't just going to die, Damon. They were going to starve. A living, mummified corpse that can't... do anything."

Damon pressed his lips against the back of Jeremy's neck, and then he nodded, his eyes closing. He couldn't really imagine what it must have been like, wasn't sure he even wanted to. He was fairly certain that he wouldn't have tried to help nearly as many as Jeremy had.

Then his arms slid around Jeremy's waist for a moment, and he pulled back just enough to murmur against Jeremy's skin, "It's all over now."

"I thought you said it was just beginning," Jeremy said easily, and Damon snorted, scraping his teeth against Jeremy's skin. Jeremy's heart skipped a beat, and Damon had to brace himself, had to get his mouth away from Jeremy's neck to keep from biting him right there. Jeremy groaned a little, and he turned when Damon's hold loosened, looking over at him. "C'mon, Damon, you can, you know. You can bite me—"

"Stop it," Damon said sharply, and he felt the push behind the words, the instinctive need to throw all his weight behind them, make sure they'd be obeyed, but he wasn't expecting Jeremy to stop, wasn't expecting the way Jeremy's mouth closed and he nodded slightly.

Damon felt his stomach sink, and his eyes darted down toward Jeremy's bracelet, still on his wrist, before he looked back up. It took him two of Jeremy's heartbeats, and then he said, voice even, eyes narrowing to pinpricks when he spoke, "Jeremy, sit on the bed."

Jeremy did so, perching on the edge of the bed and smiling vacantly up at him, everything that made him Jeremy gone and this was just like before, just as though his Jeremy had never come back. Damon growled and he jerked back from him, getting space in between them and letting Jeremy surface from the compulsion. It didn't take him as long as Damon had suspected it might, but then again, Jeremy always was surprising him.

"Damon?" His voice was shaky, probably uncertain how the hell he'd ended up sitting on the edge of the bed, and Damon shook his head slightly.

"It's nothing, Jeremy," he said, careful not to look at him. He might end up compelling him all over again, making him trust him instead of getting it because Jeremy was Jeremy and gave it to him so freely. "You're fine."

"You're not," Jeremy said, and Damon cursed him silently, wondering why, exactly, Jeremy had to be perceptive, had to be so damned brave.

"Am too," he countered, and then he moved, pressing a very quick kiss to Jeremy's forehead. "I'll see you later. You need to get some sleep. And do homework, yeah? Yeah. I'll catch up with you."

And he was out the window without giving Jeremy a chance to argue.

He hadn't thought about that, about the fact that the bracelet was over a hundred years old. There was no vervain left in it by now probably. It was a worthless, pretty piece of jewelry that matched Damon's but did nothing to keep Jeremy safe. He swallowed.

There wasn't vervain anywhere near Mystic Falls anymore either. He'd made certain of that.

He'd never expected to actually need any.


	4. Seeking

**Title**: Footsteps of a Traveler  
**Author**: Traxits  
**Chapter Rating**: Teen.  
**Chapter Warnings**: Mentions of a suicide attempt, overprotective family members, epic boy-girl friendship.  
**Chapter Word Count**: 5115 words.  
**Author's Notes**: None.

**.**

**[[ … Chapter 4: Seeking … ]]**

**.**

The next few days were absolute hell because Jeremy didn't see Damon a single time. He went through the motions, trimming his hair, trying to gauge, based on how his father kept eyeing it, how short he'd been keeping it. Anna noticed what he was doing the next day at school, snorted, and somehow he found himself in the boy's bathroom with her carefully cutting it for him. A few guys came in, but one narrow-eyed look from her, and they bolted almost as quick as they'd come in. Jeremy snorted his amusement, exchanging grins with her in the mirror, and for a minute, things felt right. He felt like maybe this was what his life was supposed to be.

Then she'd say something, reference something they'd done together, and the moment shattered, left him giving her a wry, almost apologetic smile as he shrugged. She laughed at him, leaned in to kiss his forehead— the last time she'd kissed him, it hadn't been anything nearly so chaste, but did he still want that? Really? Because what he'd had with Anna wasn't anything at all like what he had with Damon. What he had had with Damon, maybe, if the bastard wasn't ever coming back.

Jeremy sighed, and it wasn't until Anna nudged him that he focused back on her, on what she was doing. He reached his hand up, brushed his fingers through his hair. It was strange, it being short again. He'd gotten used to it long. He grinned at her, thanked her, and then she reached out, brushing her fingers against his wrist before she asked quietly, "Are you okay, Jeremy?"

"Fine," he replied and he twisted his hand around to curve his fingers around hers, trying to reassure her. "I'm fine. I... just keep thinking is all. If I could shut that off, I'd be great."

"And just what is the great Jeremy Gilbert thinking so hard about?" she asked, letting go of him to hoist herself up to sit on the counter in front of him. It was funny, he decided after a minute. Last time he'd done this, it had been Elena who was in the boy's bathroom with him so early on in the school year, and that incident had been absolutely nothing like this one. He turned, leaning back against the counter, shrugging. Anna inched over to him, laced her fingers together, and propped her head up on his shoulder.

"I don't actually know anything about this place," he finally admitted, and she hummed a short tuneless note right there by his ear, but she didn't say anything. He glanced over at her. "I mean, okay. I... you know I went back to your time and everything, right? You read the journal. But this... this isn't where I came from. It wasn't like this when I left."

"You changed things," Anna replied with a little shrug, tipping her head to look up at him a little easier. Her voice was playful, but her eyes were sharp and focused. Serious. It was a good look on her. "You can't honestly have expected things to be exactly the same when you changed things."

"Well no, but I was hoping that I'd have something. I don't know. Memories maybe? I don't even know what all is different." He reached up, brushed his hand through his hair. "And what if I fuck up? This town is packed with vampire hunters, the Council... what if I fuck up and someone figures it out?"

Anna stayed quiet for a minute, then she slid off the counter and she brushed the loose bits of hair from his shoulders, giving him that so-confident grin. He'd missed that grin. "Well. I don't think they'll figure out that you baited some young witch into casting a spell that landed you in the 1800s where you met the original Salvatore brothers and actually participated in the biggest anything that's ever happened to this little speck on the map. You can just put that right out of your mind, got it?"

He laughed slightly, glancing away from her and wrapping his hand around the back of his own neck as he leaned his head back. "Yeah. You're right. It's dumb, isn't it?"

"I didn't say that." She glanced toward the door for a second, then back to him. "But luckily," and here her grin widened slightly, "you have a friend that you spent all summer with. I have learned a lot about you, Mr. Gilbert. I think I can coach you on what's different."

"And on Damon?" He raised an eyebrow as he looked back over at her.

"Ooh, boy trouble already? And here I thought you two would be thick as thieves." Anna's grin widened sharply, and Jeremy held her gaze until it made him flush and look away again. She always managed to do that to him, and judging from her pleased little giggle, that much was the same between this world and his own.

No, wait. This one was his world now too, wasn't he? He'd shaped it. He'd... made it. His stomach churned a little at the idea, and he rubbed his palms against his pants to keep from shaking. Suddenly, the notion that anything could happen, that anyone could be president or whatever stupid sentimentality adults liked to feed kids seemed... less ridiculous. He'd changed an entire town of people, and from there, the world.

"Jeremy?" This time Anna's voice was very soft, and Jeremy snapped his gaze back to her. She was reaching out to him, her hand light on his arm, fingertips just barely brushing his skin. He forced a smile to give her.

"Bastard disappeared," he said, picking up the thread of their conversation as though nothing was wrong. As though he hadn't just been shaken to his core. Her eyes narrowed, but she wasn't Damon. She didn't push. Just hummed and tilted her head. "The other night. He... I don't know. It was weird."

"You calling anything weird has got to give that word some weight," she teased, and she slid down off the counter, her hand dropping away. "But what happened? Exactly. Damon is pretty crazy, you know. Especially when it comes to you."

"No reason for him to be," Jeremy argued, but the words fell flat. Neither he nor Anna believed that, and she raised an eyebrow at him. "Okay, no, so he's got some reasons. But being justified doesn't change the fact that he's being an ass. He... He kisses me and then just... bolts. Who does that kind of shit?"

"Girls have been asking themselves these questions for years." Anna snorted faintly, and she reached up, brushing her hair back from her face. "I mean, at least you're getting good sex though, right? Damon is pretty damn smoking, and he's well known for being... well. You know."

Jeremy flushed dark red, and he jerked back from her, brushing the little clippings of hair from the bathroom counter. He couldn't help but think about Damon's room, the feel of the bed against him and the hard line of Damon's body against him. "Yeah. Smoking."

"... You're not having sex yet. Hot damn, Jeremy." Anna laughed, the sound sharp and pleased and somehow managing to mortify Jeremy even more. "You've managed to string him on for this long with just the promise of sex? I'm impressed!"

"Yeah, well, fuck off, okay? He was having his big gay freakout back in," he hesitated, remembering that they were in a public bathroom, for crying out loud, anyone could walk in on them. "Back then," he covered. "And then I was kind of out of the picture for a while." Dead. For a hundred and forty five years. It didn't stop Anna's giggles. "Shut up, Anna!"

"Sorry, just... Damn, Jeremy." Anna grinned widely, easily, and Jeremy wished the sight of it didn't twist his heart just a little in his chest.

(He'd missed her so much, and he could still taste her blood if he let himself think about it, could still remember the feel of her mouth on his palm, even if that feel was blurred with the memory of Damon's.)

"You know just about any teenager in this town would kill for the kind of power you've got over him right now." She pulled away then, still chuckling to herself. "Hell, a few of them— us, you know?— would kill for it too."

"... He still makes enemies then?"

"Well, he sure as hell doesn't make friends. I don't know if you noticed yet, but he's... very single-minded."

"Focused," Jeremy countered gently, and he grinned before he brushed his hand through his hair. He hadn't worn his hair this sort in a long time. Not since... well. Probably not since before his parents— his mother, he corrected himself— had died.

(Had Damon fixed him this time too? Come into his room in the dark and the night and knelt on the bed beside him and caught his gaze and whispered that everything was going to be okay? He still couldn't remember quite what Damon had promised him the first time— back in his own timeline— but he remembered the sound of his voice, the way all trouble had just fallen away. He remembered how light his heart had felt in that moment. He remembered the crushing pain after Anna's death, the way Damon had been genuinely upset by it, and the way his chest had hurt even more when he realized that he couldn't fix Damon, that Damon wasn't going to take away his pain this time. It had been that pain that had him turning up her blood and reaching for the pills—)

"More than you, apparently," Anna said, and Jeremy's attention snapped up to her. He gave her a little grin and shrugged.

"Hey, I have the most bad-ass art teacher in school apparently single-minded on me. I think I deserve to be a little spacey."

Her smile was too soft, her eyes not as warm as they had been, but she laughed all the same. Her hand was warm in the middle of his back when they headed out of the bathroom and back into class.

* * *

"Jeremy! It's Gilbert right? Jeremy Gilbert."

Jeremy blinked as he glanced over his shoulder, and it took him a second to process who the guy jogging over toward him was. Sweater and close cropped hair, and his features were familiar...

"Oh, Mr. Salvatore," Jeremy said, and he smiled as he held out his hand. A little blush touched his face, and he dropped his eyes as they shook hands. "Sorry about the other day... I didn't mean to... Well..."

"I think you did exactly what you meant," Zach replied, and his face was entirely too serious. No trace of laughter there as he studied Jeremy. "Did you... you're okay?"

"... Damon didn't hurt me, if that's what you're asking," Jeremy said finally, his eyes widening at the thought. "He wouldn't. He's Damon."

"Here, let me take you home?"

Jeremy hesitated, then he glanced back at the car where Elena was waiting, waving at him faintly. He held up his hand, shook his head, then turned back to Zach. If anyone knew where Damon had gone...

"Sure."

* * *

It was the Salvatore house they pulled up to a little while later, and honestly, Jeremy couldn't say he was surprised. He just shouldered his backpack and got out of the car, looking up at it and sighing. So many memories, and not a single one of them had happened yet, or would even happen this time. Because Jeremy hadn't been able to leave well enough alone—

Zach cleared his throat in the doorway, and he tilted his head, indicating that Jeremy could follow him, and Jeremy smiled wryly as he noticed that Zach never actually invited him in. For a moment, he played with the idea of making him, and then he just headed on in and into the living room. It was different with Zach still here. More... vital. Less alcohol everywhere for one.

Probably because he needed to not look like a lush when he did have company. Jeremy dropped his pack down on the floor by the couch, and he was staring up at the ceiling when Zach called him into the kitchen.

"Do you drink tea?" he asked, and Jeremy watched him put the kettle on to boil before he nodded.

"Yeah," he finally said, and he shifted, uncomfortable being in the kitchen with nothing to do— Aunt Jenna always insisted that he have something in his hands when he was in her kitchen. Zach must have noticed his discomfort, because after just a moment, he motioned toward one of the bar stools.

"Here. Sit. My guest, right? The tea will only take a moment." He smiled, and Jeremy was stuck for a second on how much like Damon's smile it really was. Well, human Damon. Before he'd turned, before his smiles had become as brittle as old metal and just as sharp, just as dangerous.

"Thanks, Mr. Salvatore," he said, and his voice seemed to be hung in his throat before he could get the words out. Zach raised an eyebrow at him.

"Mr. Salvatore?"

"... It's weird, calling you Zach," Jeremy admitted, and he grinned as he glanced down at the counter top.

"Well, fine, but I have a feeling you are more familiar with me than I am with you."

"I'm more familiar with most people than they are with me." It took Jeremy half a second before he realized that was a little too close to the truth, and he started laughing. "Teenager, you know? No one really gets me."

Zach chuckled. "I remember those days," he said, and he hesitated before he looked over at Jeremy again. His smile was gone this time, and Jeremy felt himself tensing automatically for it. He actually inched slightly off the stool, ready to run, before he caught himself and made himself hold steady.

"What is it?"

"... Jeremy. Damon is... dangerous."

Jeremy blinked, then he started laughing. Of all the conversations they could have been having, he had never expected this one. This was Elena's conversation to have with him, not Zach's. "Damon? He can't be that dangerous, Mr. Salvatore. They wouldn't let him at the school—"

"He's dangerous to you personally, Jeremy. He is... not a stable man."

Jeremy's eyes narrowed, and he leaned over the counter toward Zach, his smile fading sharply. "He isn't a man at all," he said lowly. "And you'd do well to remember that."

For a long moment, neither of them spoke. In fact, not a word was breathed until the kettle started whistling, and Jeremy held Zach's gaze, his jaw locked. Stubborn, Damon would mutter at him, but Zach didn't. He just stared, and finally, when Jeremy said softly, "Your water's boiling, Mr. Salvatore," he moved to take the kettle off the stove.

"How much do you know?" Zach said, and Jeremy swallowed, dropping his eyes for a second as he tried to brace himself. It was Zach. It wasn't like the man could hurt him. Jeremy had survived entirely too much by now to be worried about Zach.

"Everything," he replied after a long moment. "The question is how much do you know, and how much do you just think you know?"

Because no one knew everything. Not Jeremy, not Damon, not Elena. None of them had all the pieces. They were all too busy holding those pieces close to their chest, trying to protect each other and trying to protect the town and not realizing that the only way any of them were going to be safe was if they would just drop those pieces in a pile and see what kind of picture they made together.

None of them were willing to risk it though, and Jeremy was fairly sure that none of them would be willing to risk it now either.

Zach's fingers were white-knuckled on the counter when Jeremy looked back up at him. "More than you should. Your father—"

Jeremy's heart slammed into his ribs. His father. A Gilbert, so of course he was on the Council, and Jeremy hadn't thought that far ahead yet, hadn't processed that this was going to be him and Damon possibly against his father—

"— shouldn't have told you so much."

"I didn't find out from my father," Jeremy countered, dragging his attention back to the man standing there. "It... it's a long story. But in any case, I know Damon better than you think I do. Probably better than you do—"

"Jeremy, you are fifteen. When your father finds out about this..."

"Because you'll tell him? What are you going to tell him, exactly? That I'm fraternizing with the enemy?" Jeremy snorted. "That would require you to admit that you've got vampires in the family, Mr. Salvatore. I don't think you've told the Council that."

Because if he had, they would have been a good deal more suspicious of Damon that they had been. He would not have infiltrated them nearly so easily.

Zach's eyes widened as he looked at Jeremy, and Jeremy lifted his chin a little.

"So don't think about threatening me until you've got something to threaten with."

"I am trying to protect you."

"Trying being the operative word there," Jeremy retorted, and he slid off the stool, squaring his shoulders as Zach watched him move. "I don't need your protection. I don't need anything from you."

"He's going to kill you," Zach said, and Jeremy stilled for the way Zach said it, so even, so flat. So absolutely sure. Jeremy might have already been dead for as much as Zach seemed to believe it.

Jeremy had never had anyone so absolutely certain of his death before.

"Won't be the first time," he breathed, and when Zach's eyes narrowed sharply at him, Jeremy realized that was not the thing he'd meant to say. It wasn't anything that would help serve his case in being able to take care of himself either.

"What?"

"No, it's... not like what you're thinking. It was a long time ago." Jeremy sighed, leaning against the counter, and for a moment, he tried to decide what he needed to say, how much he could say. "I was... there. When Damon and Stefan turned."

There was a very long moment where Zach didn't reply, and when Jeremy finally looked up, Zach slid a mug of tea over to him. Jeremy hadn't realized Zach had even been working on it past the water boiling. He brought it up to his nose to smell, and Zach smiled slightly before he pushed over the container of sugar.

"When they turned?" Zach raised an eyebrow, and Jeremy busied himself with spooning sugar into the mug. "That was a hundred and fifty years ago."

"One hundred fifty five," Jeremy agreed quietly. He stirred his tea, and he brought it up to sniff again before he sipped it. There was a pause, and then he smiled up at Zach and shrugged. "Something of a traveler."

Zach's eyes narrowed again, and he held perfectly still until Jeremy took another drink of tea.

"A traveler. As in... through time."

"Well, I'm a little young to go too far from Mystic Falls on my own," Jeremy retorted. When Zach tilted his head slightly, Jeremy added, "Without, you know, a proper chaperone at least."

"Somehow, I doubt a proper chaperone is something you've had during this," Zach said after a minute, and Jeremy looked up at him sharply.

He wasn't sure what he'd been expecting. Disbelief, maybe. Shock. Maybe he'd just expected Zach to outright throw him out. Then again, all things given, maybe Zach had stolen the journal too, or maybe Stefan had told him about it.

He hesitated for just a second before he shrugged, and he sipped his tea again. "Maybe," he murmured. But honestly, hadn't he been lacking a 'proper chaperone' ever since his parents— mother, he corrected himself again; he had to start remembering that he still had his father— had died. He swallowed thickly, trying to dislodge the lump there. "Then again, given how absolutely crazy everyone was back then, it was probably just as well."

"Jeremy, you cannot possibly be serious. Has Damon convinced you of this? That this happened?" Zach's voice was easy, low and coaxing, and Jeremy looked up at him sharply, his own gaze narrowing. "You haven't gone anywhere. We would have noticed. Your father—"

Was supposed to be dead. Jeremy's hand flexed, his fingers curling in just enough to feel the scar there.

"He doesn't know," Jeremy said, cutting in. "He doesn't know and so help me, Mr. Salvatore, but this doesn't involve you."

"Damon isn't human."

Jeremy's own words, and they still stung a little when Zach threw them back at him like this. It was an effort to keep from flinching away, and Jeremy set his mug back down on the counter. His free hand tightened into a fist, and then he made it loosen again.

"You don't think I know that? I was there when he turned. I *saw* it when that switch flipped in his head, when that spark went out—"

It was Zach's expression that cued Jeremy, that had him spinning on his heel to see Damon standing there in the doorway. Jeremy's heart stopped, and then it was full force, pounding too hard, too fast in his chest.

"Damon," he breathed, and for a moment, he wasn't certain Damon was going to come into the kitchen proper. Then Damon was moving, closing the distance, and his hand came up to curl loosely against the small of Jeremy's back. Jeremy shivered for it, and Damon reached over without a word to unlatch his bracelet.

Then he was gone, and Jeremy hadn't even seen him leave. Jeremy's throat ached nearly too much to swallow again, and he glared up at Zach before he headed into the rest of the house, up toward Damon's room.

He hadn't even pushed the door open when he was suddenly shoved face-first against it. "Damon," he managed, and the pressure increased, a hand hard against the middle of his back.

"Regretting this yet, Jeremy?" Damon asked, his voice low and rough, and Jeremy's eyes closed before he shook his head. Or tried to, at least. Pushed up against Damon's door like this, it wasn't actually like he could move too much.

"No, Damon, don't—"

"Don't what?" Damon's mouth was hot against Jeremy's ear, and a little whine escaped Jeremy at the brush of Damon's lips there. "Be precise."

It took Jeremy a minute before he could get the words out, but finally, he found them. "Don't believe me."

"Who are you lying to now, Jeremy?" Damon asked, and Jeremy's eyes closed against the heat that pricked in the backs of his eyes at those words. "Trying to spare feelings I don't have, or trying to convince yourself that this wasn't all some terrible mistake?"

"Wouldn't matter even if it was." Jeremy didn't move, didn't fight against the way Damon's arm shoved harder against his back— he could barely breathe under the pressure, but it was Damon and even if Damon killed him, Jeremy had his ring on. Damon could kill him as much as he wanted.

"What?"

"It wouldn't matter even if it was." He had to work to get enough air to get the rest of his words out, and his lungs, ribs, his whole chest ached. "Mean, it's what I got, isn't it? Can't change it now."

The pressure increased, and Jeremy thought for sure that his ribs were going to start cracking. They had to. He was human and his body just wasn't as tough as Damon's; it was going to yield and give way any moment—

Then the pressure was gone and the air rushed out of Jeremy's lungs when Damon flipped him over. His eyes stayed closed, even when he heard someone else coming up the stairs.

"Damon!" Zach's voice wasn't nearly so neutral now, not when Damon was pinning Jeremy against the wall, one arm a hard bar across Jeremy's throat, his other hand loosely shackled around one of Jeremy's wrists. "Damon, you have to let him go. He's just a kid—"

"He's a *liar*," Damon growled. "Open up your eyes, Jeremy. Look at me."

Jeremy swallowed and he reached up with his free hand, his nails digging into Damon's arm. Not enough to draw blood yet. "Last time I did, you freaked out," he countered, tilting his chin up, trying to find a position that he could breathe more easily in.

"Open them." Damon's voice was softer now, and Jeremy could just faintly feel him moving when Zach lunged. He didn't let go of Jeremy though, and no matter how much bigger Zach was, he just wasn't strong enough to actually pull Damon off Jeremy.

Jeremy licked his lip.

"Don't do it, Jeremy," Zach said hurriedly. "He's going to compel you—"

The light was dim in the hallway, but Jeremy blinked against it slightly anyway, looking at Damon, lips parted to try to breathe enough for use. "Trust you," he whispered, and Damon's arm shoved harder against his throat.

That was okay though. He had his ring on. Damon could do it. Jeremy didn't fight it, didn't even let his nails dig in any further on Damon's arm.

For a long moment, the three of them stayed there, Damon and Jeremy holding one another's gazes even as Zach attempted to pull Damon away. Then Damon shoved off the wall just as Jeremy's vision started to flicker black around the edges, spots of color beginning to obscure Damon's face. Jeremy coughed automatically, but he worked to keep his focus on Damon.

Zach staggered back when Damon slammed a fist into his gut He gasped, and Jeremy dropped his hand from his throat— he didn't actually remember reaching up to touch it— to Damon's arm. "Damon," he managed, and his voice was so rough the words left him in something like a croak.

"Where were you, Damon?" Zach coughed as he glared up at Damon. "You can't just vanish for days and then show back up and start choking fifteen year old boys—"

Jeremy's heart stopped, and he scowled at Zach for a second before Damon's arm wrapped around his waist and pulled him in close. Jeremy opened his mouth, but before he could say anything, Damon had him pulled in close, and they were moving. Jeremy pressed his face in against Damon's shoulder, and it wasn't until Damon deposited him in the car and buckled him in and appeared in the driver's seat that Jeremy could manage to get a good breath. He shivered as he looked over at Damon, and they were out of the driveway before Zach managed to get down to the front door.

Jeremy watched him in the mirrors until he was gone, and then he looked over at Damon.

"Damon?" he breathed softly, and his heart pounded too damned loudly in his ears. Damon didn't make a sound, only shifted the car and sped up, his eyes on the road with a fierce intensity that Jeremy was pretty sure wasn't actually required. "Damon," he said again, and this time he reached over to brush his fingers against Damon's arm. "You okay?"

"Don't feel anything, Jeremy," Damon countered, and he didn't react at all to Jeremy's touch. Jeremy took just a second before he dropped his hand and looked out of the windshield. He didn't keep track of how many turns they made or where they made them, only that he had no idea where they were, that he was completely reliant on Damon to take him home eventually.

"Liar," he finally said when the car rolled to a stop, and Damon pulled up the parking brake before he looked over at Jeremy. Jeremy unsnapped his seat belt and flew out of the car, dragging in a breath. He barely got the door shut before Damon was there in front of him, crowding him, pushing him back up against the car. Jeremy met his eyes then, and he was trembling too hard to reach for Damon again.

"Regretting it yet?" Damon asked, and Jeremy didn't stop his hand from coming up and cracking across Damon's face. Damon moved with the blow, but Jeremy was certain that was more to make him feel better than because his blow had been that forceful. Somehow, it only served to make Jeremy angrier.

"Stop it," he growled, and he was still shaking. Damon caught his hand and pulled it up his mouth; at the first brush of Damon's tongue against his skin, Jeremy felt heat in the backs of his eyes.

Damn, he'd forgotten how out of control his emotions had been at fifteen, with his mother dead and that was before all of the time travel insanity had happened. He bared his teeth, but then Damon's hand was on the back of his neck and Damon's mouth was on his. Jeremy's hand wrapped tightly in Damon's shirt as he kissed him back, hungry and needy and trying not to let himself cry, not here, not like this.

It was a minute before Damon pulled back to murmur softly, "What the hell kind of tea was Zach feeding you?"

Jeremy shook his head. "Don't care, Damon, c'mon, you can't... I didn't mean—"

"Liar," Damon shot back, and this was great, what a pair they made, so certain that one another was lying all the time. Jeremy snorted at him and kissed him again, and then Damon pushed him harder up against the car, his lips on Jeremy's jaw and throat as Jeremy tilted his head back.

"Don't tease," he breathed, and Damon pulled back so that he could push Jeremy's shirt up. Jeremy's free hand tangled in Damon's hair as a low moan escaped him. A brush of Damon's teeth, a sting, and before he could even really feel it, Damon coughed and jerked back.

Jeremy wasn't prepared for the way Damon hit the ground, choking and twitching. Jeremy's heart stopped. He dropped to his knees, wrapping his arms around Damon in an attempt to hold him still.

Suddenly the tea wasn't as innocuous as it had seemed at the time. Zach had watched him drink it, had drawn a deeper breath only after Jeremy's first drink.

"Vervain," he breathed, and he was all alone in the middle of no where, with Damon convulsing in his arms.


End file.
